opensource

This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

slacktoid, in Will the new judicial ruling in the Vizio lawsuit strengthen the GPL?
@slacktoid@lemmy.ml avatar

Now do John Deer

RvTV95XBeo, in Haier, the air conditioner maker, takes down open source third-party Home Assistant integration

Bit of a tangent, but I hear Haier’s legal department can be reached at cybergovernance@haier-europe.com, if anyone has any questions about the legal grounds they’re claiming, I’m sure they’d be happy to elaborate - they clearly have plenty of free time on their hands.

phx, in Haier, the air conditioner maker, takes down open source third-party Home Assistant integration

From what I read, this project does help integrate with HA to avoid using the Haier app, but still uses Haier’s cloud. Can anyone confirm if this was true?

MrMcGasion,

Based on the documentation on the GitHub, it looks like it does use Haier’s cloud. Which, doesn’t make Haier’s actions any less shitty, but I can understand a company not wanting a bunch of users using their undocumented API, especially if there’s potential to have automations hitting it more frequently than their own app does (not that I have any reason to believe this project was actually being inefficient with API calls).

baseless_discourse, (edited )

EDIT: sorry, I read it wrong, I thought the reply says the addon “doesn’t” use the remote API.

I digged a bit on the code, and every command indeed go through the cloud. So even if you use this addon, Haire can still collect a fair bit of data about you, since there is no way to communicate locally and directly to the AC.

But the addon only sends the minimum amount of data to achieve functionality, so definitely not as much data as using Haire’s app.


Can you link to where the documentation that specify they don’t use API?

Because I am looking at pyhOn (dependency of hon, and also being taken down), it seems like when executing a command, they do contact the cloud. Specefically


<span style="color:#323232;">url: str = f"{const.API_URL}/commands/v1/send"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    async with self._hon.post(url, json=data) as response:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        ...
</span>

github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn/blob/…/api.py#L215 . The call to API is later used to send command:


<span style="color:#323232;">result = await self.api.send_command(
</span><span style="color:#323232;">                self._appliance,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">                self._name,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">                params,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">                ancillary_params,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">                self._category_name,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">            )
</span>

github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn/blob/…/commands.py#L14…

And the API_URL indeed points to a remote API:


<span style="color:#323232;">API_URL = "https://api-iot.he.services"
</span>

github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn/blob/…/const.py#L2

phx,

Yeah, so I can kinda understand Haier’s position here though they probably could have just set/quoted some ToC’s on using their cloud services.

It also means that IMO the plugins weren’t offering much other than integration, and this probably would have been a product I’d have avoided even before they started acting like dicks.

Local control or bust (or ability to reprogrammed with FOSS firmware)

ConstipatedWatson, in Will the new judicial ruling in the Vizio lawsuit strengthen the GPL?

This was well written and makes me miss Groklaw once more

alice_mac, in OSS-Blacklist: A blacklist for keeping track of OSS hostile companies/organizations

I’m shocked that the list only contains one

qaz, (edited )

I created it less than an hour ago. If you have any other suggestions please share (or send a pull request).

EDIT: The list contains 3 companies now

joeldebruijn, in OSS-Blacklist: A blacklist for keeping track of OSS hostile companies/organizations

The new owner of Simple Mobile Tools? Buying it and then adware stuffing? ZipoApps?

Kidplayer_666, in Will the new judicial ruling in the Vizio lawsuit strengthen the GPL?

I now want to become a kernel contributor just so that it would be possible for me to use the copyright excuse too

eldritch_lich,

If I understand correctly, this applies to users, not just contributors. As a user of the software you are entitled to a copy of the source code.

Eldritch,

Exactly. What are contributors? If not, also users?

robolemmy, in OSS-Blacklist: A blacklist for keeping track of OSS hostile companies/organizations
@robolemmy@lemmy.world avatar
qaz,
Enkers, (edited ) in The issue to create a new main menu for Minetest has been open for 6 years.

I’m a long time heavily modded minecraft player, and I’ve never heard of this issue. If you want proper feedback, I’d suggest adding more context. (That is to say, an outline of the feedback, so we don’t have to wade through 6 years of discussion.)

Minecraft has always had a janky aesthetic, so this doesn’t seem like it’s particularly out of the ordinary.

rufus,

Hehe, this is about MineTEST, a “clone” of Minecraft. So it’s probably understandable you’ve not heard of the issue. 😏

Enkers,

That explains it! Lol.

Rocketpoweredgorilla,
@Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca avatar

Wrong game. Minetest, not Minecraft.

Enkers, (edited )

Ah, I assumed it was part of some sort of OSS mod suite for minecraft. My mistake.

django,
@django@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I am somewhat of a Warcraft player myself and have played lots of custom maps. I too never heard of this issue.

haui_lemmy, in OSS-Blacklist: A blacklist for keeping track of OSS hostile companies/organizations

This is awesome! Maybe it should be noted where the cutoff is. What is considered hostile behavior and what is not?

qaz,

That’s a good point. I wasn’t really sure where to put the cutoff point nor how to define it. Another problem is what consists as anti-OSS behavior. Is anti-right-to-repair part of it?

haui_lemmy,

Good question! May I suggest some kind of poll or questionaire to gather what the majority thinks constitutes oss hostile or anti oss behavior. Maybe it would also be good to question the purpose of this list to maybe find a logical cutoff point that way. Example: If naming and shaming is the purpose then it might not matter if anti right to repair or just not giving any api access since it makes controling stuff you bought harder by choice.

I always choose this kind of philosophical approach since it helps me make decision.

thesmokingman, in OSS-Blacklist: A blacklist for keeping track of OSS hostile companies/organizations

It’s probably a good idea to have a stronger definition and mission. Here are a few scenarios you should consider.

  • FSF defines anything that’s not copyleft as hostile. That’s most companies. I personally don’t think I can tell my users what to do with my software other than remove my liability so I vehemently disagree with Stallman.
  • Mongo wrote the SSPL and MariaDB wrote the BSL. Both licenses are seen as regressions. I personally respect the MariaDB case and have been harassed by too many Mongo salespeople to say the same about them.
  • Platforms like AWS are the reason companies like CockroachDB and Elastic implemented restrictive licenses.
  • IBM has been gutting open source through its acquisition of Red Hat. This is a common story; Oracle has been screwing *nix longer.
  • Protecting trademarks causes a lot of consternation from users. The Rust Foundation is the most recent example of this I remember blowing up the FOSS community.

I like your idea a lot. I think it needs some definition to be very successful!

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

i feel like the MPL is fsr superior and fairer than the MIT license

thesmokingman,

I personally use Apache 2.0 because it’s been upheld in court. I’m not sure if MPL has been directly challenged in court. Either way, I agree with the sentiment. The legal perspective is why I moved away from MIT/ISC.

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

you should considwr MPL, if someone found a security vulneravility theyd be legally obligated to tell yoy for example. also, it still allows commerical closed source software. try it!!

qaz, (edited )

FSF defines anything that’s not copyleft as hostile. That’s most companies. I personally don’t think I can tell my users what to do with my software other than remove my liability so I vehemently disagree with Stallman.

I’m not planning on counting that as hostile behavior. Organizations can choose a license for their software (and I can choose not to buy/use it). This collection is mostly focused on companies that hurt existing Open Source software. Such as sending a cease and desist to an unofficial plugin/extension or closing down software that was originally open source.

taladar,

Maybe your could also add organisations (companies, government agencies, NGOs,…) that create standards in such a way that the standard is hard or impossible to implement in open source implementations?

ResoluteCatnap,

I.e reddit raising API costs high enough that it effectively killed it.

taladar,

I was more thinking about things like governments that decide that every implementation of something must be certified to be used, e.g. with wireless technologies. Not so much implementation as specification or legal compliance barriers to open source basically.

You raise a good point though, financial barriers such as per user pricing that are hard to implement for software distributed for free would be quite similar.

psud,

IBM is so good and so bad. Their machines are so open. Their software is not.

rufus, (edited ) in The issue to create a new main menu for Minetest has been open for 6 years.

I think it’s just a larger undertaking. Like mentioned in the last comments. People either need to address that as the main focus for some new major release and work on it. Or subdivide it and find people to work on the individual components to make it happen (gradually).

Also there is always the thing with hobby / free software projects. Sometimes people focus on functionality and features and not so much on asthetics and the first impression. I agree the welcome screen is somewhat important as it’s the first thing a new player sees. But I also like the developers to work on features which enhance the actual gameplay because I just see that screen for 10 seconds and it’s kind of a waste of time to improve it for someone like me. The current screen works alright. There are several dynamics affecting projects: “Perfect is the enemy of good” (don’t make it too complicated) but also sometimes a makeshift solution or something that works “okay” stays inplace indefinitely because “it works” and people concentrate on other stuff. That’s just how things work. It takes deliberate effort to work against those dynamics.

So I’d say the cause is, their focus is somewhere else.

erranto, in Haier, the air conditioner maker, takes down open source third-party Home Assistant integration

I always thought about why don’t FOSS projects that are at risk of getting sued by big corp like (NewPipe, Popcorn Time, streamio, tachiyomi …) embrace the dark web or git over torrent via VPN, so their projects don’t get threatened with take downs. z-library ended having to move to the dark web after all.

ShortN0te,

Most ppl don’t think about that or don’t know that their project will take off. And then it is already too late.

Krafting, in OSS-Blacklist: A blacklist for keeping track of OSS hostile companies/organizations
@Krafting@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t forget to add Nintendo

qaz,
tired_n_bored, in Haier, the air conditioner maker, takes down open source third-party Home Assistant integration
  1. Give the copyright to the FSF
  2. Donate to the FSF
jackpot, (edited )
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

why donate it? theyll just be sued? do they have powerful legal teams?

tired_n_bored,

The FSF actively encourages people to do that, and yes their legal team is there. Not sure whether it’s “powerful” but surely better than a single developer

lambda,
@lambda@programming.dev avatar

How do you “give copyright” to them?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • opensource@lemmy.ml
  • localhost
  • All magazines
  • Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #